Workshop Outline

In the first week, especially the first few days, it will be intensive, with everyone in the studio, working together, learning about the glass and getting VERY HOT!  There will be a lot of teaching/instruction time and many hands on group exercises where we all work together as a team(s). 

Then, in the second week there will be individual sessions where you can focus on your own ideas, as well as lots of drawing sessions to get your ideas flowing.

The second week will see a slowing down of the pace, but a sense that ‘time is running out’ will keep you focused on your own works and ideas as there are only limited personal sessions.  Nevertheless, everyone will go home with lots of glass, pieces that are finished as well as unfinished, that are wild and wonderful.  These are the products of an adventure where you discover the material, its movement and the dance steps required to work with hot glass.

My focus as your teacher is on the development of your basic skills, so get ready to work within the group as you lean together the movement and the material.  Note that team working is not easy, you are not only learning about how to move yourself, but how the glass moves and how others will be moving around you!  Working together in a co-operative and commutative environment is really fulfilling as well as at times frustrating.  Nonetheless, with a team to support you, you can make larger and more intricate pieces than you could make alone.  You can share the weight of the glass, be protected from the heat of the furnace and create the energy needed to work with hot glass.  You can even ask others to make components for you which go together to produce a larger piece designed by yourself.  There is giving as well as receiving within the team working situation that is wonderful and intense.

Remember that the best way to communicate your ideas to others is through drawings! 

B.Jane COWIE

B. Jane COWIE has been working with glass for over 20 years.  She studied at Sydney College of the Arts, and was awarded a degree in the Visual Arts in 1983.   Her commitment and desire to learn about art and glass inspired her to travel extensively.  She has worked in glass studios and factories in England, Europe, USA and Japan to develop technical skill and an intimate understanding of the material.  Now based in Singapore, Cowie continues her practice as an independent artist while teaching (in her home studio).  She works on large private, public and commercial commissions as part of Art Glass Solutions Pte Ltd, a company she established in 2008.

A glass artist with an impressive international experience, Cowie completed a Master Degree in Visual Arts at the University of South Australia where she examined the history and practice of glassmaking in South Australia using an ethnographic methodology to provide a glassmaker’s perspective of history.  With specialist knowledge, Cowie was well placed to undertake research as a participant / observer, as she had worked within the South Australia glassmaking community for over 10 years.

Cowie has owned and operated her own glass blowing studio, the Spinifex Glass Studio, was a Board Member of the JamFactory, South Australia’s premier glass art centre and founded the Blue Pony glass makers’ cooperative studio in Adelaide.  She has worked in studios and factories around the world to learn more about different glass making communities, techniques, skills and unique glassmakers’ tacit knowledge.  Cowie has taught at The Glass Furnace for a number of years, as well as the Bild-Werk Glass School, Germany, Lasalle-SIA College of Arts in Singapore, the University of South Australia and was President of Ausglass: the Australia Association of Glass Artists, coordinating numerous glassmaking Conferences in Australia during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Exhibiting widely in Australia, Europe and Asia, Cowie is included in a number of public and private collections.  In keeping with her ideas about place and community, Cowie maintains a teaching practice in her Kuo Chuan Glassmaking studio which has seen a large number of her students go on to purchase their own equipment and begin their own glass making career in Singapore.  Cowie continues her commitment to glass art by supporting and being a part of the burgeoning art glass community as a teacher and exhibiting glass artist. 

www.bjanecowie.on.net